


Trial by Fire

by all2well



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Lawyers, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - School, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Law School, M/M, Modern Era, Remus Lupin & Lily Evans Potter Friendship, Slow Burn, They're In Love Your Honor
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-14
Updated: 2021-03-18
Packaged: 2021-03-22 13:15:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30039261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/all2well/pseuds/all2well
Summary: Remus Lupin came to law school to fulfill his hopes for professional success and financial stability. Sirius Black decided to attend law school after his best friend, James Potter, dared him to apply on a drunken whim. When they are assigned to be first-year Legal Writing partners, all the evidence points to a whirlwind semester ahead.
Relationships: James Potter/Lily Evans Potter, Sirius Black & Remus Lupin, Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 20
Kudos: 58





	1. Chapter 1

“Remus!” Lily Evans waved furiously from down the hallway and speed-walked towards him. “I’m so glad to see you again. Happy New Year.”

“Welcome back, Lily,” Remus grinned. He balanced his civil procedure textbook underneath one arm and accepted Lily’s tight embrace. “How was your break?”

“Oh, you know,” Lily exhaled. “Good, mostly, except for Petunia and her horrid fiancé.”

“My condolences,” Remus said grimly as he held open the door for Lily and followed her into the classroom. The classroom was still mostly empty, though the few classmates who had already sat down and picked their new seats greeted them both warmly.

They sank into their preferred seats, first row on the left side. Professor Slughorn, their civil procedure professor, had sent them an email several days beforehand assigning them their first readings and also promising that they would be able to select their seats as they wished. This was already a step up from their first semester, Remus thought, as it ensured that he’d be able to sit with Lily. At the very least, they could surround themselves with some of their friends, Alice Fortescue, Frank Longbottom, Mary Macdonald, and Marlene McKinnon, rather than be forced to sit next to any of the other members of their fifty-person law school section. Most of them were rather nice, though there were a few that Remus would have paid good money (more than the looming student loans that he had already had to take out, of course) to never sit next to again. He thought darkly about his contracts class in the first semester and how he had rarely been able to concentrate thanks to his obstinately annoying section mate.

Lily shrugged and unwrapped the scarf from around her neck. Remus recognized it as one of the ones that she had stress-knitted during finals. “I’ll get over it. Mom, dad, and I did get some good skiing in, so at least that’s something. How about you? What did you do?”

Remus hemmed and hawed. “Mostly stayed around here. Went home for a week or two and then came back here to my dorm and read for an entire month.”

“Read anything good?” Lily asked as she hauled her computer out of her backpack.

Remus thought for a moment as he pulled out his pens and lined them up carefully – the black that he would use to take notes on whatever Slughorn said, the blue that he had used to brief the cases, the red that he would use for notes on the dissenting opinion, and the green that would be used to fill in any information that Remus had not quite understood. He hoped desperately that this semester, fewer pages would be streaked with green. A pit formed in his stomach as he remembered how he had had to reread their civil procedure cases nearly three times before he could figure out the holding. He tried to shake it off and answered Lily’s question. 

“I’m trying to reread _The Iliad_ after I read this other book that was a retelling of it. Really brilliant work, honestly.”

“Hm,” Lily responded. She was also an avid reader, though she preferred non-fiction by far. Lily dreamt of being a public defender and she usually buried in books about criminal justice reform when they were not slogging through case law and journal articles. Remus appreciated these books too, of course, but it was difficult to justify reading non-fiction when he spent almost all of his waking hours trying to understand very real and yet maddeningly abstract cases.

“Hi, you two,” Alice said with a broad smile as she slipped into the row with Remus and Lily. Her long brown hair had been cut into a short bob that reached the chin of her round face. She was holding onto Frank’s hand tightly. Frank grinned pleasantly from behind Alice.

“Ohmigosh,” Lily said, standing up to hug Alice. “You cut your hair!”

Remus hugged Alice and patted Frank’s back.

“Welcome back,” Remus grinned. “How was Los Angeles?”

“Gorgeous weather,” Frank declared. “Makes me wonder why I decided to come to law school over here.”

Alice rolled her eyes. “Frank refuses to acknowledge the fact that the east coast offers many delights that California couldn’t _dream_ of having.”

“Like what?” Frank demanded as he pulled his computer out and booted it up. He knelt underneath the wooden desk so that he could plug it in.

“Seasons, for one,” Remus offered.

“Skiing, snowboarding, winter sports in general,” Lily counted off on her fingers. Remus noticed that she had painted her nails a dark red color that stuck out vividly against her pale fingers.

“And my whole, wonderful family,” Alice said sweetly. “And you loved meeting my family over the break, right?”

“Oh yeah,” Frank said unconvincingly. He gave Lily and Remus a look and made a gesture slicing his finger across his throat. “They loved me. It was a mutual feeling.”

Remus smiled at him and turned back down to his notebook. Somehow, Remus guessed that Frank was exaggerating. It was difficult to imagine Alice’s family, whom Remus understood to be as warm and welcoming as Alice herself, not liking Frank. The two of them had started dating in the second week of law school and had made an inseparable and almost nauseatingly adorable couple ever since. Remus was thrilled for them, though of course it had been a bit strange having section mates dating each other. To date, they were the only couple in the section. Lily had privately told Remus that she hoped it stayed that way – otherwise, they were doomed to repeat the drama that had apparently run rampant through other sections that had decided to engage in inter-section dating.

“Oh great,” Lily groaned suddenly. She sunk down in her seat as though she could hide her entire body and each strand of her dark red hair behind it. “ _You know who’s_ back.”

“Who, Potter, or–?”

“Frank, Alice, Lily, hello. And a very happy start of second semester to you, Lupin,” Sirius Black said smoothly by way of greeting, casting a shadow over Remus’s textbooks and carefully handwritten case briefs as he placed a large cup of iced coffee on the table. He planted his hands on the wooden desk right in front of Remus and shook the hair out of his eyes. Remus looked up and was rewarded with one of Black’s signature smirks. “So what can you tell me about the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure?”

Of course, his least favorite section mate and former contracts seatmate had decided to make his presence known. While Remus appreciated most of his classmates in law school, Black was one of the few glaring exceptions. It was easy enough to dislike him just based on his incredibly snobbish pedigree – he was something like the great-great-great-grandson of a Supreme Court Justice, had a father who was a famous and high-powered litigator back in his home state, and was rumored to be among the wealthiest students at a law school that was already rather well-known for its privileged student body. Everyone knew that. It was not something that Black could deny, given his last name and the angular face that looked remarkably like the portrait of Justice Arcturus Black hanging in the law school library. Instead of being humble about his background, or at least trying to fit in and just do the work quietly, as many students from famous lineages did, Black flaunted his past and bragged openly about the fact that he had no idea what he was doing in law school. Remus had disliked him since the first days of class. During the section icebreakers, Black had shocked their section by flippantly explaining that he had applied and gotten into law school on a dare from his college best friend and now-section mate, James Potter. It was his favorite refrain whenever the section was stressed about final exams, or career prospects, or the generally competitive nature of law school. He made it clear that everyone who cared was below him.

Remus, of course, lived in a completely different world. Part of the Black legal dynasty, he was not. He could not even claim to be part of the cognoscenti that James – whose mother taught undergraduates mathematics at Brown, and whose father was an economist currently serving in an advisory position to the President himself – belonged to. Remus had not necessarily dreamed of becoming a lawyer growing up, as Lily had, but he had thought of the law as his way into a stable financial situation and a world that had been so desperately unattainable to him for a long time. It made his parents, Hope and Lyall, proud to have a son who was training to be a lawyer, and at one of the most prestigious law schools in the country no less. Once he graduated, and assuming he passed the bar exam, Remus would be the first attorney in the Lupin family. 

((If it had been up to Remus, he would have been a writer. He had not told even Lily that, since he did not want to risk a pragmatic lecture on why being a lawyer was the more fiscally responsible option. But we digress.))

Needless to say, Remus chafed at James and Black’s easygoing attitude towards law school. If it had been up to Remus, he would have steered clear of Black and James, as well as their friend and fellow section mate, Peter Pettigrew, as much as possible. An unfortunate slash of luck, however, had meant that Remus and Black had been assigned to be contracts seatmates for the entirety of the first semester. Black seemed to take particular delight in attempting to get under Remus’s skin three days a week, and then at some point, even on the days that they did not have contracts with Professor Sinistra. Black regularly asked him questions about his personal life that bordered on intimate (Remus pointedly refused to give him the time of day), attempted to copy his notes instead of paying attention during class (Remus became talented at positioning his notebook so that Black could see as little of them as possible), and generally seemed to enjoy bothering Remus at every chance that he got, either by pretending that they were excellent friends or by teasing him mercilessly about his study habits. He had also constantly badgered Remus about coming to one of the big parties that he and James sometimes hosted at their apartment, which Remus had flat-out refused to attend, claiming that he had to study and even if he didn’t, he had better things to do.

Remus had hoped over winter break that Black had decided to drop out of law school once and for all, but alas, his prayers had gone unanswered.

“I can tell you that you should probably read them,” Remus said dryly. He inched his notes away from the condensation beading on the coffee. “Anyways, didn’t you tell us that your father or something drafted them in the first place? Shouldn’t you know them by heart?”

Without asking, Black flipped over Remus’s softcover book of rules that they were all supposed to have ordered from the law school bookstore. He turned to the third page and studied the list of authors. Black ran his finger down the page slowly and tapped on one of the author’s names.

“Look at that, Lupin, you’re right. My Uncle Alphard _did_ write them. Good on you.”

Remus gave him an annoyed glance. “Right, then maybe he can lend you a copy.”

Black flashed him a half-smile. “Alphard’s dead now.”

“Oh.” Remus said stiffly. “Sorry.”

Black laughed. Remus hated the way that the full-bellied sound of it filled up the room. More than that, he deeply resented the fact that Black’s laugh seemed to creep under the collar of Remus’s sweater.

“It’s not your fault. Don’t worry about it. He was a wonderful person, though. Maybe I’ll try to conduct a séance and ask him if he can explain Motions to Dismiss. Would you want to join?”

Something about the brilliant white teeth of Black’s smile struck Remus as distinctly canine.

Remus scoffed. “I think you’d be better off trying to memorize the rules instead of playing some stupid game of Ouija.”

“But what’s the fun in that?” Black teased. “Law school’s boring enough. We might as well try to make it interesting _somehow_.”

“ _Some_ of us decided to come to law school because we actually wanted to learn something and become lawyers.” Remus snapped.

“Or because we wanted to some good in the world,” Lily interjected. “Not all of us woke up and decided to get a law degree for fun.”

“For fun?” Black snorted. “You must have a funny sense of what’s enjoyable. No way in hell even _you_ could consider briefing one of these cases fun.”

Their civil procedure professor, Professor Slughorn, stepped in the door with a heavy-looking textbook under one hand and a large, steaming cup of tea in the other. Remus sat up straight. His stomach flipped uneasily. He knew that Professor Slughorn was a difficult professor to impress, but those who managed to get through to him often earned themselves prestigious letters of recommendation. Several of his favorite students over the last few years were now Supreme Court clerks – a handful of them had spoken to Remus’s 1L section during the first few weeks of law school about their experiences. 

“Morning, all,” Slughorn said as he began to set up his notes.

“Sit down,” Remus hissed at Black. Black took two large steps up the stairs and slid into the seat right behind Remus and Lily. Remus could feel Black’s eyes on the back of his neck and resisted the temptation to smooth down the stray hairs there.

Remus turned around suddenly and pointed at the iced coffee disdainfully. “You forgot your drink.”

Black shot him a slow, lazy smile. “No I didn’t. I bought it for you.”

“I don’t want your coffee.”

“Consider it a first day of school present. It’s just how you take it, come on.”

Contracts had been their first class of the day most days last semester, and Remus had sipped at the exact same coffee with the same oat milk and the same two packets of sugar every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday of 1L fall. He had not realized that Black had been paying enough attention to his drink orders.

“You’re welcome,” Black whispered. He slipped Remus an infuriating wink. Remus thought about finding an excuse to pour the coffee on the expensive-looking cashmere sweater that Black was wearing underneath his jacket, but could not bring himself to waste the coffee or the beautiful fabric. Turning back to his seat, he took a sip and begrudged the fact that it had been doctored up perfectly. He could almost feel Black smiling smugly behind him.

“Sorry I’m late,” a very unsorry-sounding voice said suddenly, and Remus could hear James Potter, and presumably Peter, setting their things down around them. “Why are we sitting so close to the front?”

“No reason,” Black said casually.

“Hello, Lily, hi Remus,” James said eagerly. Remus turned around and James waved despite their close proximity. His dark hair was even messier than usual.

“Hi, James,” Remus replied. While he disliked James by his association with Black, he truly had no real reason to hold any animosity against him.

“Hello, Potter,” Lily tossed over her shoulder. She, on the other hand, found James arrogant and haughty, all too willing to derail the class by presenting admittedly complicated and interesting hypotheticals, too good at cold calls and the Socratic method, and too casual about his intelligence. Remus had been on the receiving end of more than a handful of James Potter-themed rants from Lily. It was a shame, Remus thought, as he was almost certain that James harbored some sort of romantic interest in Lily.

Slughorn clapped his hands enthusiastically. “Alright, let’s start. Happy beginning to the second semester. We begin with subject matter jurisdiction. Now, Mr. Pettigrew, could you recite the facts of this case for me?”

Peter stammered through the facts of the case decently enough, though clearly not up to Slughorn’s standards. Remus could tell by the way that Slughorn’s eyes passed over him disappointedly. Remus squirmed in his seat. He hated cold calls, though luckily for him, Slughorn only chose a handful of people to pick on for each class. He prayed that when it was time for his civil procedure cold calls, he would somehow manage to impress.

***

It was funny how Remus could be so absolutely exhausted with only three classes on his schedule for the day. An hour and a half of Slughorn’s civil procedure had been followed by another hour and a half class, torts with Professor Binns. Binns had droned on and on about duty and negligence in their overly warm classroom until Remus thought he might pass out or fall asleep.

Their final class was Legal Writing, taught by their section leader, Professor McGonagall. While most 1L classes spanned a single semester, Legal Writing was the only class that they had taken in the fall and would once again have for two hours a week in the spring. The fall had focused on research memoranda and drafting legal documents, including a contract that had taken Remus the better part of November to write. The spring semester of Legal Writing, according to the syllabus that Remus had downloaded and word-of-mouth from the upperclassmen that he had met, focused on writing briefs in partners and culminated with nerve-wracking oral arguments. Remus and Lily had texted about their plans over winter break. They had agreed to partner for the occasion. This was perfectly suitable to Remus, who recognized that he was the slightly better writer between them. Lily was far more talented at oral arguments. They matched each other well.

Unlike Slughorn and Binns, Professor McGonagall was a clinical professor. She was the executive director of one of the intensive clinics that was offered to the second and third-year students. Hers focused on criminal justice policy reform and prison condition impact litigation.

Though Remus had not necessarily bonded with any of their 1L fall professors, Professor McGonagall had been his favorite, perhaps because she had taken the time during their first semester to arrange short chats with every single member of the section. Despite her initial and apparent sternness, McGonagall was actually quite kind and empathetic for a law school professor. She took incredible pride in being a section leader. As their section was rather young, comparatively, to the other three cohorts (many students, including Remus, had either gone straight through college to law school or had taken only a year or two off), she seemed to see herself more as a high school guidance counselor at times.

During his coffee chat in October, Remus had explained that he was the first lawyer in his family, and McGonagall had confided that she too was the first to earn an advanced degree.

“It is a privilege to be in the position, Mr. Lupin,” McGonagall had said, offering him one of those curious British tea biscuits that she seemed to always have with her. “And yet also a steep learning curve. I remember the feeling quite well. But you are handling it admirably.”

Now, Professor McGonagall strode through the doors of the classroom and surveyed her class of fifty wordlessly.

“Good afternoon, and welcome back,” she said crisply. “I trust that you all had good winter breaks. As you know, the second semester of Legal Writing focuses on the world of writing briefs and performing oral arguments. The law is a field of collaboration, as you should know after several months of being here. As a result, this semester hones in on your ability to submit polished work product and give persuasive oral arguments in pairs. Your briefs, which should be about twenty-five to thirty pages, are due in April. In May, you will each present your side before a panel of distinguished practitioners, faculty, and judges from the surrounding area. The brief will make up fifty percent of your grade in this class and the oral arguments, the other half.”

Lily nodded and typed furiously at every word that McGonagall said. Remus thought she might sprain her wrist in the process. McGonagall continued, oblivious to the frenetic typing.

“After consultation with the Dean, and after a _fiasco_ in last year’s class that we would much rather not repeat, we have decided to return this year to a system of assigning partners.” 

There were general murmurs of discontent. McGonagall silenced them all with a steely look. She clicked around on her computer and projected a spreadsheet onto the wall directly above her. Remus squinted at it, realizing that a semester of reading case law in miniscule print may have wreaked more havoc on his vision than he had planned. He had been stubborn about not getting glasses in college despite seeing fuzzy words when the blackboard was too far off, but he worried that time was truly running out when it came to the glasses that he would almost certainly have to buy this semester. Lily gasped.

“Lily, what does it say?” Remus whispered furiously.

“I’m working with Potter,” Lily said, putting her face in her hands. “I’m going to fail, aren’t I?”

Next to her, Marlene snickered. “Shit luck, Lils.”

“Shut up,” Lily glowered. “Lucky you. You get Frank, who’s brilliant.”

Remus tugged at her sleeve. “Can you tell me who I have?”

Lily looked again. Her face did something funny. “Oh, I’m _so_ sorry, Re.”

Remus met her steady green gaze and his stomach swooped. “Please don’t tell me…”

“Lupin!” Black shouted at him from the other side of the classroom. “Ready to work together? This is going to be brilliant.”

“Please keep your voice down, Mr. Black,” McGonagall said sharply. “You can connect with Mr. Lupin outside of class about the brief.”

Remus did not dare to look up from his notes for the rest of the class, as McGonagall refreshed their memories on how to properly cite from journal articles and newspapers. He wanted to scream with frustration – after a slew of good but not exceptional grades in the fall, he was hoping to use the spring to stand out somehow among his cohort. He doubted that he’d be able to do so with Black as his partner for this class. In the margins of his notebook, he began calculating his grade point average if he managed to succeed in all of his other classes and only achieved middling results with this one. Because Legal Writing was a two-semester class, it was weighed more heavily than his other classes. Without a good grade, he was, to put it elegantly, fucked. Remus ripped the page out and crumpled it savagely.

Class ended shortly after the sun set on campus. They mingled with one another, with briefing partners exchanging numbers (Peter Pettigrew looked rather pleased to have Mary Macdonald’s number, Remus noticed) and discussing the semester ahead. As Remus packed up his books, Lily marched over to James and immediately began establishing a suite of ground rules for the project. Remus could see her using her index finger to spell something out for him. Remus could not see Lily’s face, but imagined that she was using the impressively stern face that she had perfected over the last semester. James kept nodding at her enthusiastically, so much so that Remus almost worried for the state of his neck at the end of their conversation.

Black snuck up on him while Remus was deep in a train of thought.

“Lucky me, huh?” Black grinned.

“Lucky you,” Remus said coolly. He picked up his torts textbook and stuck it in his satchel. He stomped down the steps of the classroom and headed towards the door. Black beat him to it and opened the door for him. “Thanks.”

“Why am I getting the sense that you’re not thrilled to be my brief partner right now?” Black asked slowly, clearly biting down on his lip to keep from smiling.

“Because you’re very perceptive?” Remus replied sarcastically. He continued walking down the hallway to the lockers that the law school had installed just last year, after students had complained about having to return to their dormitories and apartments too often to switch out the thousand-page textbooks that professors assigned for every class. The lockers looked like they were out of a 1980s high school sitcom, in pastel shades ranging from dandelion yellow to sickly light green. Remus’s could only be described as a dusty robe.

Black followed him to his locker.

“Do you mind?” Remus asked sharply as he turned his lock and yanked it open. “I’m busy, in case you can’t tell.”

Black leaned against the locker next to him. Remus could sense him studying him.

“Why do you hate me?”

“I don’t hate you,” Remus said, crouching down and throwing his textbook into his locker with significantly less care than he would have done normally.

“James says you do. Let’s try again. Why don’t you like me?”

“I think you’re obnoxious,” Remus said flatly.

He laughed again, that infernal roar that burrowed deep into Remus’s brain. Black threw his head back and nearly hit his head against the lockers.

“Wow, tell me how you really feel,” Black grinned. “Or maybe don’t. I don’t think my ego could take too much bruising, especially not from you.”

Remus made a noncommittal noise and stood up. He shrugged on his down coat.

“Do you want to get a drink?” Black offered. “We could go to The Three Broomsticks, my treat. Talk about why you hate me, maybe. Talk about this brief that we’re writing. Talk about you.”

“No thanks,” Remus huffed. He made to get out of the small nook where his locker was located, but Black blocked the way out. Remus looked down at him with annoyance.

“Well, at least give me your number.” Black said, pulling out his sleek black phone.

Remus was quickly losing the minute patience he had carried into this conversation. “You can email me if you have any thoughts about the brief. RJLupin, and then the whole law school email address ending. We don’t get the instructions until next week anyways, so there’s nothing really to discuss right now.”

A smile crept over Black’s fine features. He looked amused, as though he had realized something that Remus had not.

“Okay. Fine,” Black said, stepping aside and bowing gallantly so that Remus could leave. He shook his long, dark hair out of his eyes. “But I’m really excited to be partners anyways.”

“It’ll be an experience, I’m sure,” Remus managed.

He made the terrible mistake of meeting Black’s gaze head-on. Black’s gray eyes flickered like the gentle, lapping flames of a candle. They softened his sharp cheekbones and the contours of his jawline until the features looked almost rounded. Remus’s eyes swept briefly over Black’s leather jacket (not nearly warm enough for the frigid January weather, not that Remus cared if he ever caught cold), his black nail polish that was chipping at the ends, and the lace-up boots that made their presence known as they crisscrossed the marble floors of the law school.

For what had to have been the hundredth time since their first days of Orientation, Remus cursed himself for having a desperate, overwhelming, infuriating crush on the most exasperating person he had ever met.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So the last thing I imagined doing right now was starting another writing project, but this one sort of latched on and wouldn't let me go. Not only is this my only capitalized title, it's also the first one that doesn't have a song-based title. Big changes for all of us. Time will tell what becomes of this. 
> 
> Take care, everyone, and thanks for reading!!!


	2. Chapter 2

“So I imagine you’re thrilled with your new brief partner, aren’t you?” Sirius smiled slyly at James, who was slouched on the couch, torts book in hand. Sirius had been trying to make it through a single case with no success. James, on the other hand, had managed to both engage Sirius in conversation about their first day of classes and also annotate what looked like the next few weeks’ worth of material. Sirius admired the way that his best friend could devour the material and also regurgitate it brilliantly for the professors. He was also incredibly jealous that James, unlike him, was not bored to tears any time he pried open a textbook.

James grinned gamely at him and ruffled his messy, dark hair. He snapped the cap on one of his highlighters and turned to face Sirius, who was lying on the shaggy carpet despite the chair right next to him. The dog that he had gotten last year, Padfoot, a fluffy black labradoodle, dozed on top of his legs.

“I can’t say I’m disappointed to be working with Evans, no. She gave me a whole lecture about her planned schedule for the next ten weeks and how she expects us to have a full draft ready by mid-March. I reminded her that’s like…six weeks away and she just looked at me.”

“A dangerous look,” Sirius remarked. Lily Evans frightened him a bit, with her dark red hair, blazing green eyes, and sharp attitude. Personally, he didn’t see what James saw in their classmate, but he supported him regardless.

It was the very least he could do. James, after all, had stood by him through thick and thin for the last five years. He had been there when his parents had told him in his senior year that they would continue financially supporting him for the sake of appearances but in their minds, they only had one son, his brother Regulus. James had opened up his family home in Rhode Island to him, invited him on the international family trips that he took with his parents, helped him figure out what to do with himself after graduation, when the idea of leaving college still seemed insurmountable. They had lived together out of the Potter home in Providence for a full year. Euphemia had welcomed them back with open arms. Fleamont, who traveled to and from Washington when he met with the President, had been overjoyed to have his only son and Sirius, whom he often called a son, in the house keeping his wife company.

James, who had his deferred admission to law school in hand for the following year, had gone off to work every Monday through Friday to do research for a well-known political science professor at Brown. Bored and lonely, Sirius had gotten Padfoot to keep him company. Once he realized that Padfoot far preferred sleeping to running around with him, Sirius had spent most of that year in the Fletcher Building of the Rhode Island School of Design. He had weaseled his way into a workspace, somehow, and spent most of the year sketching and drawing until his hands cramped and his fingers ached.

At first, he had thought about applying to a Master’s in Fine Arts. Then, of course, somewhere along the way, he had gotten drunk off Fleamont’s whiskey and had been convinced to sign up for the LSAT. Sirius had floated through the materials, somehow scored a 174 (James had steamed with fond exasperation – it had taken him _months_ to get to a score that was lower than that), and had applied to the same law school that James had. In a cruel twist of fate, he had gotten in. They had rented out a luxury apartment ten minutes away from the law school with the money that Sirius still got from his parents and that the Potters were only too happy to bestow upon their son. James had been there for him every step of the way.

“Remus didn’t look too thrilled about being partnered up with you though,” James snorted. “He looked like he wanted to walk straight out of the building.”

“I can’t imagine why. I’m a delight to be around,” Sirius said offhandedly, staring out the window. “He called me obnoxious, though.”

His voice was petulant even in his own ears.

“You _are_ obnoxious,” James laughed. “When did he tell you that?”

Sirius smirked, remembering their conversation right after class. Remus had looked so aggrieved at the prospect of spending time in Sirius’s presence. His brown eyes, tawny with flecks of gold, had fired up and had blazed the entire time. Over the break, his hair had grown out longer, and he had kept pulling the front strands back from his forehead. He had looked…

Sirius stopped himself.

“I cornered him by his locker after McGonagall let us out,” Sirius said, trying not to give away his thought processes.

“I don’t think he’s your biggest fan, you know,” James said idly, flipping through the textbook index and consulting the syllabus for what had to have been the fourth time during their conversation. “He probably wouldn’t be so annoyed by you if you stopped irritating him every ten minutes. It’s a miracle you both survived contracts without having a blow-out argument. I think he hates you.”

Sirius frowned. He ran his fingers through Padfoot’s curly fur. “You really think he hates me?”

James looked at him. “Not everyone has to like you all the time.”

“I know, I know,” Sirius said hastily. “But I figured he was just hard to get through to, you know, or that the whole thing was a front and he actually really liked me.”

“Probably not,” James said flatly. “Just leave him alone for a while and maybe you can get back to neutral by the end of the year. Why do you want to torment him so bad anyways? He seems pretty normal, nice guy.”

“No reason,” Sirius said, though he guessed that he had spoken a bit too quickly. James gave him a funny look.

“Hold on. Do you like him?” James asked. “You know, if you do, we can talk about how–”

“No, no, not necessary, Jamie. I…no. You just made it clear that he doesn’t like me.”

“Yes,” James said patiently. “But I didn’t ask about whether he likes _you_ , I asked about whether you like him.”

An awkward pause lapsed between them. During Sirius’s junior year, he had confessed to James in an intimate, four-hour conversation, that he was interested in men. It had not been by choice; James had walked in accidentally on Sirius and Fabian Prewett from the men’s crew team in a compromising position in their common room. Since then, James had been almost too earnest about discussing what romantic interests Sirius had. Sirius, on the other hand, was not particularly eager to share the sexual details with his best friend, no matter how much he loved him. Anyways, there wasn’t much to talk about. None of the men that Sirius had ever been involved with had become anything close to a romantic relationship. He didn’t mind it. He had a pretty face with a pretty body and a shit ton of money. That was how he marketed himself to his flings, anyways. He didn’t need more than that validation.

“I don’t like him,” Sirius said stubbornly. “I just like getting under his skin.”

James blinked. “Is that a euphemism?”

“ _No_ ,” Sirius practically shouted. Padfoot readjusted himself and Sirius lowered his voice. “It’s just me being honest about how I’m not interested in him.”

“Positive?”

“…yeah?”

James sat up and met his gaze. Sirius attempted to keep eye contact, but was forced to look away at the last minute. He felt James’s triumphant grin.

“Ha! I knew it. I guessed it last semester too.” James pumped his fists up in the air. He ignored Sirius’s fervent pleas to please shut the fuck up.

“Riddle me this, Potter. If I were interested in him, why would I keep trying to annoy him?” Sirius demanded. He ignored the voice in the back of his head that asked precisely that same question.

“Because you’re shit at flirting?” James half-asked and half-stated.

“I am very charming,” Sirius said hotly. “A regular Casanova.”

“Yeah, you flirt with everyone, Sirius, except for the people that you’re _actually_ interested in.”

“And how do you know that?”

“Because of the way you act with Remus!”

“Objection, Mr. Potter!”

“Oh good,” James grinned. “You finally learned something after a semester of law school.”

“Fuck you,” Sirius said. Padfoot got up, stretched his legs, then trotted over to the food bowl as though he could not have a care in the world. “I got better grades than you last semester anyways, in case you forgot.”

 _Lucky_ , Sirius thought enviously as he watched his dog. _Wish I were a dog. Wouldn’t have to go to class. Or have this conversation with James._

“That’s only because I got food poisoning during our property exam,” James protested. “And I still got a B+ with that awful curve.”

“Whatever,” Sirius smirked. “ _You_ are shit at flirting. That’s why your idea of chatting up Lily Evans is asking her what she thought of the holding in a case.”

James scowled. “I’m interested in her for her mind! I think she’s completely brilliant.”

“Of course you do. And how much progress have you made with her and her brilliant mind?”

James fell silent. The only sound besides the rattle of the radiator was the sound of Padfoot finishing off a bowl of food.

“Exactly,” Sirius said smugly.

“At least I’m trying. If you’re actually interested in Remus–”

“Which I’m not,” Sirius interjected.

“–then you might as well try to be a little nicer to him instead of bugging him for his notes or making a big show about how little you care about law school. You come off like the typical rich frat bro.”

Sirius looked scandalized. “I’m just rich and incredibly good-looking.”

“There you go again, with that delightful personality,” James said with amusement. He pulled out his civil procedure textbook and skimmed over the notes he had made in the margins of the case they had done that day.

Sirius sat up and leaned against the chair behind him. “Say, theoretically, I found him attractive. So what? Doesn’t mean that he’s interested. Or into guys, for that matter. I mean, not like I care.”

“Oh, I think he is interested in guys, actually,” James said casually. He went over to Padfoot and scratched him behind the floppy ears. “But since you said you don’t care…”

“ _What_?” Sirius cried. “How do you know?”

“He’s part of that club at school, you know, for LGBTQ lawyers. I tried to get you to join last semester and you said no.”

“I didn’t have time,” Sirius said defensively. “Trying to read these boring cases and journal articles and then drawing when I have a chance, and then taking care of Padfoot…”

“Leave Padfoot out of this,” James laughed. “All he does is eat, sleep, and ask for one walk a day. I’d rather be Padfoot’s roommate than yours sometimes.”

Sirius sniffed. “Rude, Potter. Can we go back to the main point here? How do you know?”

Padfoot followed James back over to the couch and jumped into his lap. “What were we talking about? Breach of duty in torts law?”

“ _James_ ,” Sirius said. “This is serious.”

James looked very proud of himself. “I thought you were Sirius. Isn’t that the terrible joke you use all the time? Maybe you can use that one on _Remus_ ,” he raised his voice and smiled. “I’m sure he likes to laugh every once in a while.”

“How do you know that he’s not just an overeager ally, like you?” Sirius demanded.

“Because I just know these things,” James said mysteriously. “Also, I was eavesdropping on a conversation he had with Lily and he was definitely talking about an ex. A _male_ ex.”

Sirius’s eyes glazed over. He couldn’t imagine Remus having any sort of ex, because that would involve Remus being in a relationship rather than staring diligently at his textbook for eighteen hours a day. He wondered what his ex was like – taller than him? No, he doubted it. Remus was already taller than him. He would’ve had to be dating a basketball player for that. Wait, Sirius thought in a brief panic. Maybe he _did_ date a basketball player. Maybe he preferred athletes. Something told him that Remus, with his plain and sensible sweaters and omnipresent books, wouldn’t get along well with athletes. Maybe he liked artists, Sirius thought hopefully. And then he squashed down on his thoughts with the realization that even if Remus was, as James claimed, interested in men, he was not interested in _him_.

“You still alive? Or are you too busy daydreaming about your crush?”

“He’s not my crush,” Sirius said faintly, though they both knew by then that he was clearly lying.

“Maybe you can woo him with your exemplary legal writing skills,” James laughed.

Sirius made a face. Legal Writing had been a challenge last semester. While he could get into the issue-spotting nature of tests well enough, writing memos on subjects that made him want to take a long nap had been arduous. This semester, he resolved himself to try his very best in Legal Writing. He owed it to Remus.

“I think you should try to be less annoying to him. Flirt a little bit.”

“I always flirt.”

“Flirt like a normal person. Not like you," James snorted.

“I think we should throw a party this weekend,” Sirius announced suddenly, opening up his laptop and logging into Facebook. “Our section only.”

“Alright, let’s do it. That’s new, though,” James remarked. Normally, they had invited other classmates that they had made friends with through James’s club soccer team or through Peter’s friends from college in another section, as well as their friends. The parties that they had thrown in the fall had been very well-attended. Sirius remembered that some of Lily and Remus’s friends had come – Marlene, Mary, Alice, and Frank, though neither Lily nor Remus had come to either.

“Yep. I think it’s time that we all have a little bonding session together. Nothing like a long winter break without each other to really remember how much we care.” He scrolled through Facebook and began inviting their section mates. He received a dozen immediate responses. As though he had not already checked this before, he commented aloud: “Oh man, Remus doesn’t have one. But you know, as my brief-writing partner, I’d feel terrible about him not coming. I’ll just sent him an email.”

“Of course,” James snickered. “As your brief partner, you care a lot about him feeling included.”

Sirius opened a blank email and began typing out a message.

_Dear Remus,_

No, that wasn’t quite right.

_Lupin,_

No, he backspaced furiously.

_Hi Remus,_

Sirius bobbed his head from side to side, weighing it on his tongue. He tried once more.

_Hey Remus,_

_James and I are throwing a party for our section at our apartment this Saturday. It’s at 8, 12 Grimmauld Place. It would be really great if you could come. You could bring Lily as well, if you’d like._

_Sirius_

He sent off the email before he could think too much about it and pretended to turn back to the torts textbook that he had never started reading. His computer pinged a few minutes later.

_Sirius,_

_Thanks. I’m not much of a party person. I extended the offer to Lily, and she would like me to tell you that she is not interested in you. See you in class tomorrow._

_RJL_

Sirius groaned. “Shit.”

“What?” James looked up from his book.

“I think he thinks I’m interested in Lily,” Sirius whined, pushing his computer towards James. James frowned down at the message and began typing out a response. He turned the computer back towards Sirius. Sirius looked at what James had written.

_Sorry, didn’t mean to make things weird. I’m not interested in Lily like that. I’m interested in you._

“I can’t just tell him that!” Sirius yelped. “Don’t be an ass about this.”

“I just feel like being straightforward is the way to go here. We aren’t in high school anymore,” James said.

“I don’t know, Jamie, law school feels an awful lot like high school sometimes,” Sirius said crossly. “Anyways, if you want to be so straightforward, why don’t you say anything to Lily?”

“Fine.” James looked wildly stubborn.

James took the computer back and typed out a new message furiously.

_Sorry for the confusion. My roommate James is actually interested in Lily (don’t tell her that). I was hoping that you and I could get to know each other better. At the very least, we’ll have good drinks and good food. And also, decent music – James is really into Seventies music, though, so sorry if you hate it._

Sirius looked at the message, taken aback. “Why would you admit to it?”

James shrugged. “He’ll tell her for sure. If she likes me back, then she knows. And even if she doesn’t, then she knows it wasn’t you. Anyways, she probably won’t think I’m being serious.”

“And you’re okay with her just knowing that you’re interested?” Sirius clarified.

James looked fairly nonchalant. “Why not. Padfoot, what do you think?”

They turned to the dog, who was snoring softly on the couch next to James.

“Alright, I’m doing it,” Sirius sighed. “It’s your funeral, Potter.”

Sirius abandoned his book and pulled out his sketchpad, beginning to draw the tree hanging right outside their window. His computer beeped once more a quarter of an hour later.

 _Fine_ , the email wrote, and Sirius had never been so thrilled to see that particular four-letter word before. _We’ll be there._

***

Sirius marched into civil procedure on Wednesday with his chin held high. Not even the fact that he had snow all over his beloved leather jacket and snowflakes stuck to his hair could shake him from the unabashedly good mood that he was in. James had teased him the rest of Monday night and throughout Tuesday about his little crush (which was false, and almost certainly slander, though Sirius could not confirm – he had not done any of his con law reading yet, seeing as he didn’t have class until Thursday afternoon). He ignored his classmates preparing anxiously for their cold calls in the hallway outside Slughorn’s classroom. He ignored the upperclassmen chugging energy drinks as they paced from class to class. Everything seemed obsolete when he was in such a stellar mood.

He was in such a good mood, in fact, that he accidentally crashed straight into Remus in the hallway outside class.

“Oh shit, I’m sorry, Lupin,” Sirius said, bending down to pick up the stray papers that had floated out of Remus’s textbook. In small, precise handwriting, Remus had carefully written out his case briefs. “Damn, your notes look good. Can I borrow them?”

“Absolutely not,” Remus growled, taking the notes back from him. He looked exhausted, with dark circles blooming underneath his eyes. The harshness of the color contrasted with the warmth of his tan skin – skin that managed to look golden, even in the midst of an interminable northeastern winter, Sirius noted – and the light spattering of freckles on his cheeks. The dark circles didn’t make him look bad, Sirius thought absentmindedly, just strangely delicate. He looked like a Victorian love interest.

“Are you okay?” Sirius asked curiously.

“I’m fine, thanks,” he said snappily. “Just tired.”

“Long night at the library?” Sirius asked, trying to keep his voice as level as possible.

“Yes, actually. In case you haven’t noticed, we were assigned nearly a hundred pages last night for this class alone.”

Sirius nodded. “I had noticed, actually. I just didn’t do it.”

He winced at the last sentence that he had added in unthinkingly. Of course he had done the reading. Why would he pretend that he hadn’t? Remus gave him a cold, hard look. Sirius shrank underneath his glare.

“Must be nice,” Remus said coolly as they headed into the classroom. “What do you plan to do if you get cold-called?”

Sirius aimed for his most charming tone. “I’ll lean over and look at your notes.”

“Is that how you plan to make it through the rest of law school?” Remus asked testily.

“Not at all. I figure at some point, I’ll look at Potter’s notes.”

Remus shot him a dark look and settled into his seat. Sirius lingered around awkwardly as he pulled his impressive collection of pens. He noticed James coming in through the back of the classroom and raising an eyebrow at him. Good old James, Sirius thought fiercely, as James struck up a conversation with Alice Fortescue so that he would not interrupt their chat.

 _Be straightforward_ , he heard James’s voice call out in the back of his mind.

“Can I buy you a coffee or something sometime?” Sirius blurted out.

Remus gave him a funny look. For a moment, Sirius thought that Remus looked flustered, but then he blinked, and Remus was back to his expressionless face. “Why?”

Sirius fumbled around with his words. The look on Remus’s face made him feel as though he were being laughed at. “Because. Um. You know, you just look really tired. Coffee might help.”

“I must look really terrible,” Remus said dryly. He touched his face, then his throat, then the back of his neck. Sirius could not get the image of his mouth on Remus’s face, then his throat, then the back of his neck, out of his mind, and feared that he might say something to that effect. He clamped down on his tongue with his top teeth.

“Why would you say that?” Sirius said, looking down at his polish. The color had chipped terribly by now. He curled his hands into his fists.

“Because you won’t stop hounding me about how exhausted I look. I’m just not well-equipped to survive on little sleep. It’s not like I’m on the brink of death.”

“That’s okay. You still don’t look terrible though,” Sirius tried.

“Doesn’t matter if I do,” Remus said dismissively. “I’m not here to look nice. I’m here to learn.”

Sirius finished shaking the last of the snowflakes out of his hair. It felt damp to the touch. “Okay then. So what about the coffee, then?”

“I’ll have to decline.” Remus yawned lightly. Sirius tried hard not to picture what he looked like in the morning, with the sleep still in his eyes and his hair rumpled. He blamed James for getting the words out of him and triggering a series of mental images that he could not afford to have.

“Would the court like to give its reasoning on the matter?”

“Not particularly,” Remus replied.

Lily Evans arrived promptly at that moment, her knitted hat and scarf covered with snow. “Miserable weather out there. Almost drowned on my way over from the dorms.”

“I thought it was kind of nice,” Sirius offered. “Very romantic weather outside.”

He wondered if Remus liked winter. He seemed like he would. He looked like he was the type to read through an entire snowstorm. Sirius willed himself to avoid the image of Remus reading with his head in Sirius’s lap on their couch. He truly would never forgive James Potter for letting him start to think about this in earnest, after nearly two months of keeping his mental tendrils mostly to himself.

Lily looked at him suspiciously.

“Didn’t you hear? I’m not the one who’s into you,” Sirius said, putting his hands up in surrender and finally dragging himself to the row right behind them.

“Yes. I know,” Lily said slowly. She looked behind her to where James was still talking to Alice.

“Are you excited about the party though?” Sirius said, casually greeting his classmates who sat right behind him. “It’s going to be a good one.”

“Remus said there’d be Seventies music,” Lily said. “Which I suppose is the only real reason we’re going.”

Sirius would let James put every stupid disco song he liked on the playlist if it meant that he could get the two of them to stay. He vowed to learn the lyrics to at least one Donna Summer song if it meant he could impress him.

“You’ll get to meet my dog,” Sirius said casually. “His name is Padfoot. He’s a labradoodle.”

“I prefer cats,” Lily said with an uppity voice. Not for the first time, Sirius wondered how someone as warm as James could be interested in someone as headstrong and chilly as Lily. “Remus likes dogs, though.”

Remus shot her a look that Sirius could not quite read.

“Do you want to see pictures of my dog?” Sirius said excitedly. Finally, he had landed on _something_ that could get him back on neutral footing with Remus.

Remus was about to say something in response, but Professor Slughorn walked in right at that very moment. He swiveled around and immediately faced forward. James and Peter slid in next to them.

“Heard there’s a party this weekend,” Peter said cheerfully. “I hope Mary’s coming.”

“I’m telling you, Pete, I think that’s a losing cause,” James said sympathetically.

They looked over at Mary, who was shouting at something that Marlene had just said. Her head was thrown back in laughter.

Peter laughed. “You’re one to talk about losing causes, James.”

“Well, at least Lily knows now,” James said uncertainly, looking over to where Lily had glanced at him and then turned down immediately to her paper.

“That’s enough, class,” Slughorn said, sounding irritated. He looked like he was in a particularly foul mood. He began pelting them with questions about jurisdiction left and right. Sirius did not notice or particularly care. He spent the entirety of civil procedure focused on sketching the elegant way that Remus’s hand floated over the page as he wrote his notes. On a whim, he tapped Remus on the shoulder after class ended.

“I’m not giving you my notes.”

“Spoilsport. But I wasn’t going to ask that, I was going to ask about the coffee.”

Remus shook the hair out of his eyes. “No.”

“I get the feeling you don’t want to go on a date with me,” Sirius said, and then cursed his big mouth for what felt like the tenth time all day.

Remus looked alarmed. “You want me to go on a date with you?”

Sirius froze. James looked over at him imperceptibly. Thinking on his feet, Sirius relaxed into the persona he knew best, and slouched down in his seat. He tossed his hair over his shoulder and cocked his head to the side.

“Yeah, handsome. What do you say to going on a hot date with me? Talk about proper court venues or something?”

Remus rolled his eyes. “Very funny. Go do your homework instead of figuring out new ways to be annoying.”

He and Lily darted out of the classroom with Marlene.

James looked disapprovingly at Sirius.

“Well, I think that was pretty straightforward,” Sirius said hastily. He collected his books and rushed off before James could tell him anything else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Continuing our trend of new things - this is probably the first chapter I have ever written from the close third person that focuses on Sirius, rather than Remus.
> 
> Hope everyone stays safe!


End file.
